Subject matter disclosed and not claimed herein is disclosed and claimed in related co-pending applications, Ser. Nos. 10/121,573 and 10/122,008, which are assigned to the assignee of the present application.
The present invention relates generally to information processing systems and more particularly to a system and methodology for enabling digital audio signal processing.
In today""s rapidly converging environment of communications and computing, manufacturers of devices in each field, i.e. communications equipment and computational devices, are finding immense value in reaching across the boundaries which once separated their respective arts to enhance the native functionality of equipment marketed to each field. Examples are numerous as mobile computing devices, e.g. personal digital assistants, adopt wireless technologies and as communications devices enhance their own functionality through the incorporation of increasingly powerful processors and embedded software.
In the rapidly changing world of telecommunications and electronics in general, the concepts of radio that exist today are not much different from those in existence in the early part of the twentieth century. Despite the advent of physical media which enable a user to carry the music to which the user wishes to listen, the concept of radio still exists in a format offering users very few user options. Although a user may choose a station or several stations which may be preferred by the user, there are no current options which enable users to listen to news or music, for example, at the user""s convenience rather than on the timetables provided by the local broadcasters.
Thus, there is a need for an improved digital audio processing system which provides a greater degree of control by users of radio and other broadcast signal content.
A method and system are provided in which broadcast signals are received and converted into data streams for processing. A user is enabled to select preferred broadcast stations for monitoring and signals from the selected stations are converted into digital data streams which are input to first-in first-out (FIFO) memory units to enable a local storage of a segment of predetermined duration of broadcast signals in a user receiving device. The FIFO capacity is divided by number of selected stations, or a default number of the strongest stations received, and the FIFI is reconfigured in order to maximize available stored segment duration for each selected station. As each FIFO memory for each selected station becomes full, old information or content is moved out of memory as new information or content is applied to the FIFO. The receiving device includes means for enabling a user to move forward or backward within the stored segment. Partitions or markers which separate broadcast content items, such as sequentially played songs within the stored segment, are provided to enable incremental movement to selected positions within the stored segment.